… or 9pm PT. (Right now, John Perkins, the former “economic hit man,” is talking.) Several of you got to hear Sam Harris a couple weekends ago. I’m glad that C-Span2 (BookTV.org) is reairing his speech. After I heard him on Jan. 7, I looked up info on him and his book. Here that is:
Sam Harris: “The End of Faith“
From Powell’s on The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason:
Review:
“The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated, almost personally understood.” New York Times
Review:
“[It] is rare in this postmodern age to read a book by someone so vigorously defending rational thought, especially from a unique neuroscientific perspective.” Library Journal
Review:
“Provocative is too pale a word.” Kirkus Reviews
The publisher’s comments offer much more.
kinda makes me miss Teevee-I saw Amy interview Jack Perkins years ago- and then I despaired-there is SO much that is hidden from the likes of you and me.
listening now…. and found it provocative – at first in the interesting sense… but then he lost me.
first, i really didn’t like his strawman about how religion and science don’t have to be in conflict. the standard argument goes that science is a way to understand the natural world and religion is a way to understand the meaning or our lives – a viewpoint he pretends does not exsist.
and then his anti-islam rant really turned me off – w/o accurately describing the violence of much of christianity made it obviously biased … i get enough of this kind of bigotry already.
some really good points… and some bs.
p.s. i am not taking his anti-faith personally – i am agnostic (although i find a spiritual home as a UU)…. after angrily leaving the church of my childhood.
i thought he gave a good speech, but he looks so much like Ben Stiller that I had a hard time taking him seriously.
Where is Sam Harris in graduate school? He does not belong to the Society for Neuroscience, and has not published any scientific papers indexed by PubMed. He displayed a superficial understanding of the the most current results on the confabulatory nature of consciousness. (Results from Ramachandran at UCSD for example). Of course this could have been a reflection of the general audience.